Finally. After a winter of (mostly) discomfort and discontent, Baseball is Back! The Dodgers have already played three games, sweeping the two game opening series in Sydney, Australia, and losing to the Padres in beautiful Petco Park in San Diego last night. The winter here in Colorado has been long and painful, since that horrific Sunday in February, when Seattle showed Denver what a complete football team could accomplish. The Denver Nuggets usually provide some entertainment for us until Spring Training begins and the grind of meaningless baseball games in Florida and Arizona presages the real season. This year, not so much, as the Nuggies struggle through a non-playoff season under rookie coach Brian Shaw's direction. The Colorado Avalanche, on the other hand, have energized the Rocky Mountain Region again under fiery rookie coach, Patrick Roy. GM Joe Sakic has this version of the Avs poised to make waves on the frozen surface at the Pepsi Center as they battle the defending Stanley Cup Champions, Chicago Blackhawks for home-ice in the upcoming playoff season. The Avalanche received bad news as their young superstar, Matt Duchene, has been declared out for at least four weeks with a knee injury, thus effectively missing at least the first round of the playoffs. The NHL chase for Lord Stanley's Cup is the best and hardest championship tournament in sports. Apologies to the NCAA bracket bonanza, MLB's World Series process, the NFL where they play once a week with as many as three weekends off in the quest for the Lombardi Trophy and the World Cup (which I don't understand, besides it's soccer, who cares?). It takes 16 playoff wins in four best-of-7 series to claim the Stanley Cup. What those guys do with sticks on skates is phenomenal.
But, as all real sports fans know, Baseball is the true American Pastime. Those that don't agree, are closer to Neanderthal than wrestling fans. No other activity encompasses mind, body and spirit more completely than baseball. And true fans, even casual followers, appreciate the fine points of pitcher-batter mind games, the toughness and athleticism to perform for 162 games with only 10 scheduled days off during the season. If you haven't tried to hit a round ball with a round bat when it is traveling at 110 feet per second, then you cannot appreciate that failing 7 out of 10 times over the course of a career defines a superstar. Baseball can also be dissected by jocks, eggheads and nerds alike. Where else are such terms so defining? Acronyms such as: ERA, WHIP, OPS, GDP, RBI, DH, HR, DP, HBP, LHP, RHP. A baseball fan knows that BB means a walk and K means a strikeout, with a backward K on the scorecard denoting that a batter struck out while not swinging the bat (just looking). That earned runs are runs scored against a pitcher that are not the result of a mitigating error or misplay. That a pitcher's ERA (earned run average) is computed by multiplying the number of earned runs by 9, and dividing by the number of official innings pitched. That a pitcher can be charged with runs even after he leaves the game. That a walk, hit by pitcher or sacrifice do not count against a hitter's batting average, but count as a plate appearance. That a slugging percentage is calculated by the total of bases gained on hits divided by official at-bats, and defines how much power a hitter possesses. That OBP (on base percentage) is found by adding all safe arrivals at first and dividing by all plate appearances.
The complete box score and line score of a game can recreate the game a hundred years after the game has been played. It also can tell you how many people were at the game, the names of the umpires and how long the game took to complete. No sport or activity is chronicled by so many statistics as baseball. The bases are, have always been, 90 feet apart. The pitching rubber is exactly 60 feet, 6 inches from the front of home plate. Beyond those constant dimensions, each ballpark has its own unique characteristics, since the cookie-cutter concrete, artificial grass parks of the 70's have been torn down or remodeled. The Green Monster and Pesky Pole in Fenway. Monument Park and the iconic White Façade at Yankee Stadium. The cozy confines and the ivy-covered outfield walls of Wrigley Field on the Northside of Chicago and the neighboring Wrigleyville neighborhood. That the area around Coors Field in Denver used to be the slums. McCovey Cove at AT & T Park in San Francisco where there have been 90 official splash homers. The warehouse beyond the right field concourse in Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden yards where Boog's Barbecue resides on Eutaw Street. Who can forget the banner with the number 2,131 unfurling from the walls of the B & O Warehouse as Cal Ripken, Jr. completed the fifth inning of that game on September 6, 1995?
As I finish this edition, the Rockies are getting blown out by the Florida Marlins. The first time in history an opening game was contested by starting pitchers from Cuba and Mexico. Tonight's pitching effort by our pet Rox was dismal. So, after one game Colorado's pitching has an ERA of 11.25 and the batting average is .188 with one walk earned while striking out 10 times. Slugging percentage is .273, OBP .212, for an OPS of .485. The good news? It'll just have to get better. It's just one game, 161 to go. The real opening day is tomorrow, when the Yankees open up Derek Jeter's final season at Houston. Difficult to get used to the Astros being in the American League. So, I pass on the sentiment sent to me by my daughter Alison: "Here's to leisurely sitting on the sofa watching the 2014 baseball season, just like A-Rod."
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